Destruction
by kquail
Summary: Post-canon, Yuugi Mutou and Seto Kaiba are dealing poorly with the aftermath of Yuugi and Atem's duel. Kaiba stumbles across Yuugi trying to self-destruct in a bar, and they work through some of their feelings together. **Spoiler warning for the end of the series, I guess, though if you're reading this and somehow don't know the ending then tbh I'm quite impressed**


"You look like a ghost."

Yuugi doesn't respond, just stares straight through Kaiba and slams another shot of overproof whiskey, adding the glass to the rapidly growing pile of empties on his table. His hair is tangled, sticking out even more wildly than usual, and the deep purple makes a stark contrast with the deathly pallor of his skin. Smudged eyeliner hides dark circles above hollow cheeks; blonde highlights curl over vacant eyes.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Kaiba pushes, one eyebrow raised. Seto wonders what _he's_ doing there too, in some dive bar in Domino's roughest district, but of all the people he expected to run into, Yuugi Mutou was way down the bottom of the list.

Yuugi shrugs. With trembling fingers he tries to light the filter tip of the cigarette that's hanging loosely from the corner of his lips. Grunting, Kaiba pulls out a chair and sits opposite Yuugi. He takes the cigarette, turns it the right way around, and inserts it back into Yuugi's mouth.

"I wasn't going to stay to talk, but you look a real mess… I barely recognised you." But Kaiba can't quite bring himself to look at Yuugi. He's grown up a lot, and he looks too much like one ghost in particular. "I suppose you can thank me in the morning when you sober up."

"Thank you for what?"

"I'm taking you home."

Yuugi scoffs. The smoke catches in his throat and he coughs.

Kaiba smirks. "I knew you didn't really smoke. I bet you bought those from that vending machine in the bathroom."

"Why would you care enough to take me home? I haven't seen you since…" Yuugi trails off, then takes a deep, determined drag on the cigarette before choking in a cloud of smoke.

Kaiba snatches the cigarette from Yuugi's fingers, and stubs it in the overflowing ashtray between them. "No offense Yuugi – I know that you can duel, but that deck of yours won't save you if you're lying unconscious in the gutter." His attempt at a genuine smile doesn't quite reach his eyes. If only Yuugi could know the truth about why he's been so distant.

With a hiccough, Yuugi waves his hand dismissively. "I'll be fine. But hey, if you want to take me home that badly, how about another drink? Seduce me first. Something like that."

Kaiba suppresses a sigh, wondering if he should leave Yuugi to his pathetic self-destruction after all. "You're already drunk," he says with a scowl, gesturing towards the empty glasses.

"Maybe one more shot is all it will take to forget him."

A weak smile forms on Yuugi's lips as Kaiba viscerally feels his heart shatter into pieces. For all the times he's thought those exact words, he slowly nods. "Alright, if you really want another… I suppose I'll join you."

The bar's quiet enough that it doesn't take long for Seto to push past the queue and grab a couple more glasses of whiskey. When he returns to the table, Yuugi's attempting to light the wrong end of yet another cigarette, eyelids flickering as he struggles to see straight.

Burying his forehead in his hands, Kaiba curses himself for choosing today, of all days, to be charitable for once. After slamming the drinks down on the table, he takes the cigarette, puts it in his own mouth and lights it with the silver lighter he always keeps in his pocket. Wincing, he passes it across the table.

"There are better ways of hurting yourself than cheap cigarettes, Yuugi," he mumbles, before taking a sip of the burning whiskey. With a satisfied sigh as he feels it warm him all the way to the belly, he realises just how much he needed the drink.

"Atem would hate to see me like this, you're right," comes Yuugi's response, "but I think that's part of why I do it."

His words are like the Dark Magician's thousand knives, all aimed at Kaiba's gut.

"Damn it, Yuugi. I need another drink."

Yuugi knocks back the contents of his glass in one. "I'll drink to that."

Seto leans back from the burning end of the cigarette as Yuugi gestures wildly as he speaks. For his safety, he steals it from Yuugi's clumsy fingers, takes a drag for the hole in his own chest, then puts it firmly out.

"Let's get out of here, then – I have much better drinks at home. You can get as drunk as you need, and I'll make sure that at least you don't choke on your own vomit."

* * *

It's a long time since Kaiba's brought anyone back to his apartment, and it shows. It's a flashy penthouse – where else would someone like Seto Kaiba live? – but the sleek, minimalist design of the furniture makes it feel cold and empty, and the crumpled clothes draped over the white leather couch and pan of half-eaten ramen on the shiny stove-top add a touch of melancholy to the ambience.

Kaiba motions for Yuugi to sit down on the cold sofa, then grabs an open bottle of whiskey from the granite-covered breakfast bar, before finding a couple of glasses in the dishwasher that's been full of clean crockery for days now.

"Nice place you've got here," mutters Yuugi stiffly, tracing a finger over the shiny glass of the coffee table in front of him. If he weren't so drunk, he might notice the fingerprints on the surface, and the dozens of rings marking the spots where drops of drinks have been carelessly spilled and ignored each night.

Kaiba pours a generous dash of drink into each glass, and sets them carefully down on the coffee table. The glasses fit perfectly into the circular stains on the tabletop.

"It serves its purpose," says Kaiba slowly.

"I guess this is where you sit to work on your new technologies, huh?"

Kaiba shakes his head, feeling a little warmth burn across his cheeks. "I haven't worked on anything in months. Not properly. I came here for a break, to try to get my focus back, but…"

Yuugi takes a sip from his drink and screws up his face. It's good whiskey – smooth with a warm, smoky aftertaste – but it's stronger than he expected.

"I get it, Kaiba." He traces a finger over the rim of the glass. His wide eyes used to be so sweet and full of hope, but now they radiate so much sadness they're almost painful to look at. "I had so many plans. I was going to go to college, finally make a start on all those ideas I have for games…" He shakes his head with a hollow chuckle. "It didn't take long for me to fall apart after Atem… left."

Kaiba grunts, staring at his own drink as he swirls it around in the glass.

"Happy endings are bullshit." There's a sudden fire in Yuugi's voice, the beginnings of an unstoppable drunken rage. "I felt so calm after that last duel, confident, as though I was starting this great new chapter of my life… But I didn't realise how empty I'd feel. He was there with me – _inside my goddamn body_ – for so long that now he's gone, I don't think I'll ever feel complete again." Tears collect on Yuugi's long lashes then spill down his cheeks, leaving streaks of black eyeliner over the pale skin. "I don't know how to do it Kaiba, how to keep living when it feels like such a huge part of my soul is gone."

Kaiba drains his glass in one, then exhales slowly. "Do you think you're the only one, Yuugi, who misses him?"

Yuugi freezes for a moment, then puts his glass down on the coffee table with a clatter. He stares at Kaiba, then finally finds the words to express himself. "He was my _soulmate_. He still is – always will be. How could anyone else possibly understand what that's like? How it feels to be so fucking empty inside?"

"I knew I'd regret bringing you home tonight." Kaiba tops up his glass, swirls the whiskey under his nose just long enough to breathe in its earthy aroma, then knocks it back.

"Fuck you, then. I'm leaving."

"Wait."

Kaiba grabs Yuugi firmly by the wrist, while Yuugi cocks his head to the side impatiently.

"Why do you think I'm here?" demands Kaiba. "Why do you think I've spent the past few months wasting away alone in this apartment? At…" He pauses, and closes his eyes, unable to bring himself to say that name. "_He_ was what motivated me to keep working on duel disks, on holographic technology, on computer programming… He made me want to better myself, keep striving to outsmart him and find ways to make that elusive victory that bit more satisfying when it finally did come. But now… Now there's no point."

Yuugi grabs the whiskey and forgoes such pointless formalities as glasses, swigging straight from the bottle while Kaiba watches him, waiting for any kind of emotion to register on his face at all.

"I've never admitted this to anyone, Yuugi – and hell, I don't know why I'm starting now, with _you_ of all people – but he was everything to me, my entire reason for living." Snatching the whiskey back from Yuugi, he adds, in a voice barely audible even in the silent room, "I loved him."

"He was my _soulmate_, Kaiba."

Kaiba growls, sets the bottle down on the cool wooden floor, and grabs Yuugi's other wrist – hard. His knuckles are white and Yuugi cringes slightly in pain.

"This isn't some sort of competition, Yuugi. It doesn't matter who was closer to him, who loved him first or loved him more, or who's the most broken in his absence. This isn't a game that has any winners."

Yuugi snorted. "A title Seto Kaiba doesn't want to win? I didn't think I'd live to see the day."

"Shut _up_." Kaiba pushes Yuugi sideways onto the sofa, still holding both of his wrists. He can feel a deep, animal rage burning inside; it takes nearly all of Kaiba's self-control not to smash the stupid studded bracelets around Yuugi's forearms into his stupid face. "You're a fucking mess, Yuugi Mutou. A worthless fucking mess."

Yuugi winces into the cold leather against his back as Kaiba growls at him. He can smell the whiskey on Kaiba's breath, and it occurs to him just how close their faces are. As Kaiba opens his mouth to let out another chain of furious swear words, Yuugi shuts him up the only way he can think of, by leaning upwards and kissing him.

"What the-?" Kaiba pulls back and stares at Yuugi in disgust at first, but then the colour seems to drain from his face and he's the one that looks like a ghost. But, whiskey and the faint hint of cheap cigarettes aside, Yuugi's lips are inviting and warm; he leans forward, pushing Yuugi onto his back as he presses down upon him, their lips frantically moving against each other.

As Kaiba's tongue asserts its dominance over Yuugi's, he tangles his long fingers into Yuugi's hair. Atem's would be softer, well-kept, without any knots in it, but it's close enough to have Kaiba moaning into Yuugi's lips as he thinks about all the times he's wanted to be on top of Atem like this. One of his hands releases Yuugi's wrist and begins to wander up and down, over that silly outfit Yuugi's been wearing ever since Atem left.

Yuugi never thought he'd be here – or that he'd _want_ to be here – but there's something about the comfort of Kaiba's warm, graceful body grinding against him that makes him tingle and twitch with a lust he's not felt since before…

"I want you, Kaiba," he manages to whisper between desperate kisses.

His voice is deeper, more confident than usual, just like Atem's. Kaiba's heart flutters, and his hand fumbles with Yuugi's numerous belt buckles while he kisses him so deeply that they both forget to breathe. Panting, he draws back, then kneels upright to pull off the black polo neck he's wearing. He watches with satisfaction as Yuugi wriggles out of his tank top, revealing the pale, skinny body beneath.

Kaiba sighs at the sight of it, traces his hands over the protruding ribs. If he put on just a little more weight, he'd look indistinguishable from Atem.

"I know it's not really me that you want." Yuugi arches his back as Kaiba's lips work their way down from his nipples towards the waistband of his trousers. "But… I don't care. I want you anyway."

Yuugi's hands nudge Kaiba's out of the way, and he undoes all the buckles and his fly, before pulling down his trousers and underwear in one movement. Kaiba pulls them up and off Yuugi's legs, though it takes a few tries; tight trousers don't make for smooth bedroom scenes, but at least they both laugh about it.

Once Yuugi's clothes are heaped unceremoniously on the coffee table, Seto positions himself with Yuugi's knees to either side of his head, then grazes his lips all over Yuugi's thighs, eliciting the kind of breathless, carefree giggle that seems out of character for someone so broken.

"I want… I want to hear you make that sound again," breathes Kaiba, as his mouth runs out of thigh and he's forced to go somewhere far more intimate.

Yuugi giggles again, claiming that it tickles, but he soon stops complaining when Kaiba closes his mouth around his cock; the laughter is quickly replaced by shy, suppressed moans as he thrusts gently into Kaiba's mouth.

Kaiba briefly wonders how it would feel to have Atem here in his apartment, lying gloriously naked on his back, legs in the air, dripping cock up against the back of his throat…

But Atem isn't here. This is Yuugi – a strange, broken version of him, like a marionette with half of its strings cut, but Yuugi all the same – and he's vulnerable and needy and warm, and this is strangely beautiful in its own way. He's not Atem, but this feels right somehow.

"Kaiba… Seto…" Yuugi whines his name over and over, punctuated by sharp intakes of breath. The tempo increases as he gets closer and closer to the edge. He doesn't feel whole again, not even close, but he feels _something_ and that has to be an improvement.

"Stop, stop," he whispers, pushing Kaiba's head away. He's tingling all over, and it feels at once like too much and too little. He plants his feet firmly on the couch, then shuffles back until he's sitting upright. His eyes flicker down to Kaiba's trousers, and wordlessly, he undoes them.

There's a bottle of lube stuffed down between some of the cushions from the previous night; as Seto reaches for it, he hopes that Yuugi won't question where it came from. It doesn't matter; Yuugi's too busy collecting droplets of pre-cum on his index finger, ready to drag across Kaiba's dry, parted lips as he rubs a generous squeeze of lube up and down the length of his cock.

With a grin, Yuugi shuffles forwards, kisses Kaiba again and shivers at the salty taste on his lips. He grabs hold of Kaiba's cock with one hand, and steadies himself on the backrest of the couch with the other, before lowering himself down onto Kaiba, as though he's done this countless times before.

"Atem used to love…" Yuugi trails off into a series of blissful whimpers as he gently pushes Kaiba's cock inside. "We used to play with a dildo all the time – sharing a body has its perks – but I haven't been able to… since he left, but…"

Yuugi's arms both wrap tightly around Kaiba's neck and his body loosens enough to move slowly up and down, before it starts to tense again and his moans grow louder, more free, as he no longer has the focus to mute them.

Kaiba's secretly glad that Yuugi's taken charge and seems so confident in what he's doing; it's a long time since Kaiba's had any human contact at all, and the first time he's ever been this intimate with another man. If someone had told him a couple of years or even months ago that Yuugi Mutou would be riding his cock, ecstatically juddering onto it as he took his virginity, he would have laughed in their face. But now…

He grabs a handful of purple hair and pulls Yuugi backwards just far enough to be able to reach his lips. This time as he kisses him, he doesn't think of Atem at all. Yuugi trembles onto him, warm splatters of cum marking their bodies, and he feels himself tense inside the burning warmth of Yuugi's body. Yuugi gives one last twitch as he feels Kaiba fill him up, then they collapse into each other's arms to catch their breath.

"Thank you," Yuugi breathes against Kaiba's chest as he nestles into the crook of his arm.

"Thank you for what?" Kaiba's dangerously close to calling him a dork for that.

"For taking me home." Yuugi runs a finger over Seto's chest, chuckling slightly as he realises he's leaving a trail of his own cum over the toned pecs. "I _was_ drunk, I _was_ being an idiot, and somehow… You knew exactly what I needed."

"I didn't know that _this_ was what you were going to need until I realised that I needed it too." Kaiba's usual mask of indifference has well and truly slipped – it did, in fact, slip as soon as he sat down with Yuugi in the bar, but it's only now he acknowledges the fact.

"I know how much I look like him," says Yuugi softly. "And I know that you were thinking of him. It's okay. I don't mind, really."

Kaiba grunts. "Yuugi, I… You're right, I did think of him. At first."

Yuugi widens his eyes, then props himself up on one elbow to get a better look at Seto's expression. It's difficult to read, an odd mixture of pain and the beginnings of a smile.

"But I realised that you're hurting a lot, in very much the same way that I am, and when you were on top of me, whimpering like a little dog, as though you were in agony from how good you felt…"

Yuugi clears his throat to disguise a chuckle; despite everything, Kaiba hasn't lost any of his arrogance.

"I mean… It felt as though it was healing you as much as…" Seto trails off, but Yuugi snuggles back into him as though he understands entirely.

"I was mad at you earlier. Really mad. I thought nobody could possibly know the pain and the emptiness I've been feeling… but I guess I was wrong. We both loved Atem in our own ways and we've both been in pieces ever since he left." Yuugi pauses and curls up, making himself even smaller against Seto's long body. "Maybe this sounds crazy – we did put a huge dent in that whiskey after all – but maybe we can pick up some of those pieces together."

Kaiba exhales slowly as he considers Yuugi's words.

"I don't know," Yuugi babbles. "Something needs to change and I just… It doesn't have to be all about sex, either, if-"

But Kaiba's lips cover Yuugi's before he can finish the sentence, and once they start kissing it's like a deep breath of oxygen after nearly suffocating for so long, and neither of them can bring themselves to stop.


End file.
